Employees are every business’ most valuable asset as they are the backbone of what you do. Managing employee turnover is an important aspect of human resources because it means bringing in fresh ideas and new approaches at the expense of employees that have outgrown or no longer fit in with your organisation. Nonetheless, every organisation needs to have a strategy in place to retain the best talent in order to maintain your competitive edge; these are the employees you can’t afford to lose.
There are a number of tools to help human resources departments retain their organisation’s staff. Any competitive advantage that improves an employee’s perception of their organisation and their role within the organisation improves retention. Options include salary increases, improved benefits, and growth opportunities within an organisation, as well as healthy workplace relationships and timely feedback.
Maintaining a talented workforce that appreciates your company’s behaviour and culture, whose members have personal and career goals that align with those of the business, is essential to the success of the entire organisation. Let’s explore some HR tools that can help retain the best employees.
The Importance of Staff Retention
Staff retention refers to the ability of a company to retain its desired employees. Healthy employee retention efforts require strategic planning and investment in tools to value and nurture high-performing employees so they have appropriate incentives to stay with your organisation.
High employee turnover can be damaging and expensive to your business. First of all, a lot of time, money, and energy is put into the advertising, recruitment, and onboarding process for new employees. Additionally, new hires are learning on the job and not working to their highest potential until they’ve learned the ropes. If they move on after a short tenure with your organisation, then the recruitment process needs to start from the beginning, requiring additional investments of time, money and energy.
On the same note, low staff retention rates can diminish morale between teammates as they see others deciding to move on and they may also be the ones who have to take on the burden of extra work. The departure of employees may also highlight issues others employees hadn’t previously considered and create a downward spiral among your staff. This can also damage a company’s external reputation, making it difficult to hire good talent.
In terms of business effectiveness, staff retention means incumbent employees are better trained and more capable. Keeping on quality experienced employees improves productivity, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and reduces hiring overhead. As opposed to resignations, staff retention can provide exponential gains for an organisation.
It’s important to understand the reasons people leave your company, and keep an eye out for problems that may arise. It’s equally important to understand the reasons people stay with your company, and invest in methods to cultivate this to retain talented staff.
Common Reasons Why Staff Leave a Company
If you’re concerned about losing employees, it’s essential to understand why employees choose to move on from an organisation. Some of the most commonly cited reasons for employee resignations include:
- Inadequate salary and/or benefits
- Lack of training, development, and career advancement opportunities
- Lack of role challenges
- Lack of flexible working options
- Employee burnout
- Poor workplace relationships or dissatisfaction with management
- Feeling undervalued
- Commuting challenges
- Lack of work/life balance
- Company culture or values
Methods to Improve Staff Retention
Implementing strategic methods to retain talented members of the team not only reduces turnover, it also increases performance, productivity, employee morale and quality of work, all of which accrue to the benefit of the organisation.
Compensation and Benefits
With abundant online resources available to workers to research their market value, underpaying employees can feel like an insult to them and make them feel underappreciated. By providing competitive salaries and relevant benefits, employees are more likely to know they are appreciated and can motivate them to stay with your company.
Development Opportunities
Providing and investing in training and development opportunities and creating learning paths that coincide with personal and professional growth can help employees envision a long term future at your company and set them up for internal promotions. Training current employees is usually more cost-effective than bringing on new employees who will have to acclimate to your culture.
Appraisals
Feedback is essential for employees to understand their performance within their role and how this affects the organisation. Setting new challenges and specific objectives to work towards will help to clarify an employee’s role within the company and give them direction.
Flexible Working & Mental Health
Develop a workplace culture that encourages diversity and creativity, and put in place effective anti-discrimination policies. Flexible working schedules, the opportunity to work remotely, and generous paid leave policies also go a long way toward helping employees feel they are valued.
Encourage Positive Relationships
Promoting open communication in a workplace is a simple way to promote a sense of community and shared purpose. Having regular team meetings and individual assessments empowers employees to understand and work towards organisational goals.
Leadership training options for line managers and supervisors are essential to creating positive relationships and an open working environment.
Provide Value
It goes without saying that creating an environment where employees feel valued and proud of the work they do will give them a reason to stick around. Touching base with employees about what motivates them is a key part of any strategy in gaining an edge in today’s tight talent market.
Tools to Help Increase Staff Retention
DISC Assessments
HR Profiling Solutions offers a suite of tools to help retention of employees. DISC Profiling in the form of Behavioural Assessments, Workplace Culture, Team Profiling, Leadership Development, Employee Engagement and Productivity Psychometric Assessments and 360 feedback assessments offer specific and relevant direction to individuals to support their development and enhance communication in the workplace. DISC assessments are an effective tool to increase staff retention by helping employees understand team dynamics to improve productivity and overall worker happiness.
Employee retention strategies should enable HR departments to gain up-to-date feedback on job satisfaction levels, employee engagement, and employee commitment.
Surveys
Employee retention surveys are a great tool for getting direct feedback from staff members regarding their thoughts and feelings surrounding their role and their future at your company. It’s a good idea to survey your workforce at least once a year and can give you valuable insight into how and what your workforce thinks.
Asking open questions gives employees freedom to express their thoughts and expand on their thinking process. Here are some example questions to get you started:
- If you could go back in time, would you still apply for this role? Why?
- Do you see yourself working here in a year? Why?
- Do you have clear objectives towards your learning path and promotion plan with us? If so, are you happy about it?
- Do you feel like you are reaching your full potential with this position? If not, what would make you feel that way?
- What changes would make you most likely to continue working with us?
